If you know of a way to help save our planet, even just a small part of it put it here. Also if you want to ask how to help, or even if you want to promote your environmental organisation. All goes here.

Well looking back over the year - the washing machine is still here and the computer died. Replaced computer new and specific build because I knew what I wanted but the market at the time did not. Had to replace the scanner which had died of old age.

Had to replace most of the clothes as they were hanging off me due to getting the weight down. Charity shops? Hmm well did the tours if inspection and there was nothing in size 18 that fitted or was going to last the time if I did buy it (anyone else noticed that no-one is giving decent stuff?) so new it had to be. Also replaced the camera with one on special offer as it was cheaper than replacing the batteries for the older one (then found a supply of batteries at an affordable cost for the older one so now have two )

Birthday presents for the oldest grandchildren were home made (year books for on 21st and 2 x18s).

This coming Christmas presents are home made food gifts so other than topping up the store cupboard and buying two boxes of smart chocolates and a cheap student veggie cookbook for the next university candidate, well it's not expensive then.

So looking forward to next year - only the washing machine is likely to be an expense and everything else is well in hand. So - nothing new then for next year unless I loose a lot of weight again and can't replace in the charity shops (am living in hope in both cases).

I must be a lucky bee: I did a round of the charity shops in one area of town this week-end and found 3 tops that look great. I couldn't resist and bought all 3 of them for a total of £11.97, a little pricey for my usual standard, but they all look like new and I doubt I could do better than that in the new dept (one of then is M&S)....

I realised after I shut down the computer (and went off to play litter picking in the showers, nice) that the kettle sprang a leak from the bottom after I used the vinegar to take out the lime scale and the iron also sprang a leak after I descaled it. The kettle annoyed me as it was only three years old but the iron had done at least 10 years so it was forgiven (one of Woolworths best it was).

I've only bought five new items of clothing in the last year. One pair of shoes (my old ones started leaking), two tops, a cardie and some military surplus duvet pants. I also bought a loaf tin. Mind, the loaf tin, one of the tops and the cardie were bought mostly because I had a gift card for a shop and I hadn't bought myself any clothes in almost a year. The duvet pants -- well, that's to keep down energy costs as I'm home more this winter and am not having stupid bills. So... totally justified, by my count.

Mind, the OH did just buy a copy of Fallout: New Vegas, and I have kinda nicked that for the last week.

I've managed to rope DH into making this our resolution for the new year. Although, he is pants at keeping to resolutions and I foresee nagging!
I'm very excited about it

"It's breaking the circle.
Going to work, to get money, to translate into things, which you use up, which means you go to work again, etc, etc.
The Norm.
What we should be doing is working at the job of life itself."
- Tom Good, The Good Life.

Annpan wrote:disposable nappies - even if I was using re-usables, I'd still need to buy liners.

You can get reusable liners :) (we don't use any liners at all, infact!)

I don't think I've bought much new this year, to be honest! We're very low on funds at the minute, and even if we wern't, we've always tended to buy things second hand, anyway. I love a good charity shop ;)

We try not to buy anything new if we can get away with it, my wife is well known in the local charity shops and is always on the lookout on e-bay. There are exceptions of course, we put up with the toaster only doing one side pale brown for several months then gave in and brought a new one. Likewise earlier this year when I started a new job I found myself in the position of having to buy power tools.
One thought occured to me and that is some people (but probably not the sort on this forum) could view this course of action (i.e. not buying new) to be irresponsible. With the current economic climate it could be said that industry needs people to buy more new things to help them survive and pull us out of this recession.

That's fine Skippy if we are buying new that is supporting our own companies and stuff that is made in the UK. Thing is - trade is international at the moment and many companies are international and much stuff is made elsewhere. So who would the "new" be supporting?

Yes you're quite right and many so called British and European companies have outsourced their manufacturing to the far east. I'm not advocating we fill our homes with loads of new stuff to spend the country out of recession I'm far too tight to do that , just saying somebody like an economist might just might say we are doing the wrong thing, and of course if everybody all over the world brought new then international traders would be as happy as larry.
Actually on the subject of international trade I've always thought there should be some sort of "unnecessary transport "tax as it just seems madness to ship stuff backwards and forwards across the planet.

If you have old items repaired for reuse, then as the labour is going to be local the source of the spare parts becomes less significant - and it promotes local business rather than nationals/multinationals.

A house move doesn't make for nothing new when you have to buy carpets (last summer). But curtains were good from the charity shops. At least a lot of things that I didn't need to bring here or which wouldn't fit were free cycled so some people made good use of second hand.

Curtains came second hand but all the door stops in the charity shops were "new products" as were the shower curtains. Sigh. At least tops, fleeces and coats have been good to me second hand.

No offers on free cycle from people giving up allotments for useful things like slug pellets, seeds, unused bags of compost, part tubs of fertilisers. So the stocking up for the allotment has been new. But from now on - I shall give the year a good try for nothing new.